Described as a non-linear “storyvania”, Between Horizons is a story-driven detective game set aboard the semi-open world.

Set aboard the Zephyr, humanity's first generation ship en route to another star, you assume the role of Stella, the ship's young Chief of Security, who is faced with multiple problems threatening to jeopardize the mission. You will have to make some tough moral choices and think hard to unravel the complex conspiracies on the ship if you want things to end well for Stella and the mission.

Between Horizons' story branches and ends based on your decisions and performance as an investigator featuring direct platformer-style controls, non-repeating branching dialogs, automatic saving (no going back!), collecting clues, submitting solutions to cases.

The team at DigiTales has applied numerous lessons from their first game Lacuna and proven solutions to detective game design problems to maximize player agency in the investigation process – all the while maintaining the tight pacing of a meaningful story that will ask you to reevaluate your moral compass and make increasingly tough decisions as the situation aboard the ship spirals out of control.

At its very core, Between Horizons is a detective game. We learned a lot about investigation mechanics while working on Lacuna, and we kept around some of the things that worked well:

• Cases are solved by filling in gaps in case sheets: you must complete sentences using names of people, places, and other clues you found.
• You can always drive the plot forward by submitting a case, even if your solution is wrong. If that happens, you may not know until later, when the consequences manifest themselves.
• Instead of alternating cutscenes with self-contained mini games, all the puzzles you solve are directly connected to what's happening in the story.

Good detective games usually give the player a great amount of freedom to come up with the solution on their own. Hence, after a lot of trials and discussions, we landed on some improvements to the formula that aim to maximize player agency:

• You can submit the solution to a case at any point in time. You have to decide whether or not you know enough to crack it yet. This also makes it much easier to quickly replay content if you know the solution already.
• Any evidence you find (in the entire game!) can be assigned to any case (in the entire game!).
• Instead of being presented with a linear string of levels, you can freely move around parts of the ship to investigate. New areas unlock in a Metroidvania fashion as you progress through the story.
• You can present characters with evidence, and oftentimes you need to show someone the right clue to make them talk.

Key Features:

• A New Kind of Experience: Between Horizons merges investigative-style gameplay with a branching sci-fi story in an ever-expanding Metroidvania-style environment.
• Solving Cases for Yourself: The flexible evidence system lets players assign clues to cases, confront ship denizens about them, and submit any case with evidence players have connected to it. Everything found on the ship is connected, but figuring out how — that’s the challenge.
• At What Cost?: Underneath the game's exciting and plausible sci-fi plot lies a number of thought-provoking problems inviting players to weigh intergenerational responsibility against personal freedom.
• Getting New Perspective: Timeless pixel art mixed with 3D environments and compelling visual effects come together in Between Horizons, creating a unique, beautiful art style.
• Failure is Very Much an Option: There are no second chances — submitting wrong solutions means the story will go on and players live with the consequences. A new and improved auto-save system will make sure there is no going back, as the story branches and endings are based on player decisions, none of which can be taken back.

Between Horizons is in development for PC (Steam), scheduled for 2023.